William Villalongo

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© William Villalongo/courtesy Bill and Christy Gautreaux Collection, Kansas City, Missouri

"Zero Gravity 2," by William Villalongo.

"Zero Gravity 2," by William Villalongo.

Based in Brooklyn, New York, William Villalongo paints, collages and cuts paper to achieve his intricate images which draw on the history of and myths around Black Americans and “invite the viewer to engage with the complexities and precarity of Black existence” — hence the show’s title, “Myths and Migrations.” Coming up: Art historian Melanie Herzog will lead a tour of the exhibit, at 2 p.m. on May 18.

media release: Myths and Migrations

May 3-August 11, 2024

Exhibition Celebration Saturday, May 4, 2024 • 5–8 PM • Free Admission: Join us for a free-admission artist talk and performance as part of the exhibition celebration. Artist William Villalongo will discuss the evolution of his artistic practice. Following the talk, composer and pianist Igor Santos will perform a collaborative multimedia piano piece, Offering.

May 18, 2 pm: Art historian Melanie Herzog gives an insightful tour of William Villalongo: Myths and Migrations as she explores William Villalongo’s imagery and allusions from various genres, underscoring the erasure of the Black culture and its layered past throughout the millennia.

Friday, July 26  • 8:15 PM • Rooftop Sculpture Garden: In conjunction with the exhibition William Villalongo: Myths and Migrations, MMoCA presents a screening of Space is the Place (1974, 85 Minutes), one of William Villalongo’s major inspirations for his artistic practice.

In this early, influential album/film, avant-jazz musician Sun Ra returns to Earth in his music-powered spaceship to battle for the future of the Black race and offer an 'alter-destiny' to those who would join him. The special effects, outrageous plot line, and apocalyptic message harmonize with the otherworldly score and conclude with a climactic live performance by one of the most innovative and profound groups in jazz history. Learn more and watch a trailer at mmoca.org/events/space-is-the-place. Free Admission.

William Villalongo: Myths and Migrations showcases 33 works created in the last two decades by the Brooklyn-based artist William Villalongo. Highly recognized for his paintings, collages, and signature velour paper cut-outs, Villalongo’s striking visual narratives invite the viewer to engage with the complexities and precarity of Black existence.

Known for his imaginative approach towards combining various genres with sensuous materials, the artist reimagines historical narratives and myths to underscore the erasure of the Black and immigrant experience. In his early depictions of a mythical, hot-house world filled with an almost all-female cast, (Rhombus, 2010) the artist turns to the art historical canon to wryly comment on the struggle for artistic acceptance and reassess African-American artistic histories.

More recently, Villalongo utilizes myth and history to expand our understanding of Black culture and its layered past throughout the millennia. Villalongo’s large-scale mixed-media series of a single Black male protagonist enveloped within a swirling mix of cultural artifacts and natural elements emphasizes transformation, resilience, and beauty (Black Metamorphosis 1452, 2020). Metaphorically suggesting a Black subject who continually modifies and redefines one’s identity while navigating the world through time and space, Villalongo’s compositions call attention to the fraught condition of Black life as they simultaneously honor the transformative powers of the human spirit.

This exhibition is organized by the Grinnell College Museum of Art.

William Villalongo is an assistant professor at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York. In 2016, he co-curated Black Pulp!, a traveling exhibition of a collection of printed media produced by Black publishers, Black artists, and non-Black artists, with fellow artist Mark Thomas Gibson. Villalongo is a 2021 recipient of the Rome Prize in the visual arts, awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; the Princeton University Art Museum; the Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC; and the Yale University Art Gallery, among others.

The artist received his B.F.A. from The Cooper Union School of Art, NYC, and his M.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia.